On Jan. 21, 1910, shortly before 11 a.m., the Great Paris Flood began as the rain-swollen Seine River burst its banks, sending water into the French capital for more than a week.
On this date:
In 1793, during the French Revolution, King Louis XVI, condemned for treason, was executed on the guillotine.
In 1861, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi and four other Southerners resigned from the U.S. Senate.
In 1915, the first Kiwanis Club was founded, in Detroit.
In 1924, Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin died at age 53.
In 1950, former State Department official Alger Hiss, accused of being part of a Communist spy ring, was found guilty in New York of lying to a grand jury. (Hiss, who always proclaimed his innocence, served less than four years in prison.) George Orwell (Eric Blair), author of "Nineteen Eighty-Four," died in London at age 46.
In 1954, the first atomic submarine, USS Nautilus, was launched at Groton (GRAH'-tuhn), Conn. (However, the Nautilus did not make its first nuclear-powered run until nearly a year later.)
In 1958, Charles Starkweather, 19, killed three relatives of his 14-year-old girlfriend, Caril Ann Fugate, at her family's home in Lincoln, Neb. (Starkweather and Fugate went on a road trip which resulted in seven more slayings.)
In 1959, Ohio saw widespread flooding caused by heavy rain and melted snow.
In 1968, the Battle of Khe Sanh began during the Vietnam War as North Vietnamese forces attacked a U.S. Marine base; the Americans were able to hold their position until the siege was lifted 2 1/2 months later. In Greenland, an American B-52 bomber carrying four hydrogen bombs crashed, killing one crew member and scattering radioactive material.
In 1970, the Boeing 747 went on its first commercial flight as Pan Am passengers traveled from New York to London.
In 1976, the supersonic Concorde jet was put into service by Britain and France.
In 1991, Iraq announced that it would use hostages as human shields against allied warplanes.
In 1994, a jury in Manassas, Va., acquitted Lorena Bobbitt by reason of temporary insanity of maliciously wounding her husband, John, whom she'd accused of sexually assaulting her.
In 1997, Speaker Newt Gingrich was fined as the House voted for first time in history to discipline its leader for ethical misconduct.
In 1998, Pope John Paul II began his first visit to Cuba. Allegations of U.S. President Bill Clinton's affair with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky became public when newspapers reported the story.
In 1999, former Sen. Dale Bumpers told the Senate impeachment trial of Bill Clinton that the president was guilty of a "terrible moral lapse" but not of conduct warranting or even permitting his removal from office. Raul Salinas de Gortari, the brother of a former Mexican president, was convicted of masterminding the murder of rival Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu. (The conviction was later overturned.)
In 2000, the grandmothers of Elian Gonzalez traveled to the United States to plead for the boy's return to Cuba. A military junta seized power in Ecuador. The next day, following expressions of international concern, the junta leaders turned the government over to the country's vice president.
In 2003, the Census Bureau announced that Hispanics had surpassed blacks as America's largest minority group.
In 2004, the recording industry sued 532 computer users it said were illegally distributing songs over the Internet. President George W. Bush visited community colleges in Ohio and Arizona, where he highlighted the economy and several new job-training initiatives he'd proposed a day earlier in his State of the Union speech.
In 2005, a car bomb outside a Shiite mosque in Baghdad killed at least 14 people; a suicide bombing at a Shiite wedding south of the capital killed at least seven people. The body of Megan Leann Holden, a college student whose abduction was captured on a surveillance videotape as she was leaving her clerk's job at a Wal-Mart, was found in western Texas. (Johnny Lee Williams Jr. later pleaded guilty to capital murder and received consecutive life sentences.)
In 2008, Democratic presidential rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama accused each other of repeatedly and deliberately distorting the truth for political gain in a highly personal debate in Myrtle Beach, S.C.
In 2009, in a whirlwind first full day in office, President Barack Obama showcased efforts to revive the economy, summoned top military officials to chart a new course in Iraq and eased into the daunting thicket of Middle East diplomacy. The Senate confirmed Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state.
Today's Birthdays: Actress Ann Wedgeworth is 76. World Golf Hall of Famer Jack Nicklaus is 70. Opera singer Placido Domingo is 69. Singer Richie Havens is 69. Singer Mac Davis is 68. Actress Jill Eikenberry is 63. Country musician Jim Ibbotson (The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band) is 63. Singer-songwriter Billy Ocean is 60. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke is 60. Attorney General Eric Holder is 59. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is 57. Actor-director Robby Benson is 54. Actress Geena Davis is 54. Basketball Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon is 47. Actress Charlotte Ross is 42. Actor John Ducey is 41. Actress Karina Lombard is 41. Rapper Levirt (B-Rock and the Bizz) is 40. Rock musician Mark Trojanowski (Sister Hazel) is 40. Rock singer-songwriter Cat Power is 38. Rock DJ Chris Kilmore (Incubus) is 37. Actor Vincent Laresca is 36. Singer Emma Bunton (Spice Girls) is 34. Country singer Phil Stacey is 32. Rhythm-and-blues singer Nokio (Dru Hill) is 31. Actress Izabella Miko (MEE'-koh) is 29.
Those Born On This Date Include: Soldier and Vermont folk hero Ethan Allen (1738); explorer and historian John Fremont (1813); Confederate Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson (1824); firearms designer John Browning (1855); Roger Nash Baldwin, founder of the American Civil Liberties Union (1884); fashion designer Christian Dior and German high-wire walker Karl Wallenda (both 1905); actors Telly Savalas and Paul Scofield (1922); comedian Benny Hill (1924); famed DJ Robert "Wolfman Jack" Smith (1938).
This Date In Entertainment History January 21
In 1942, Count Basie and His Orchestra recorded "One O'Clock Jump" in New York.
In 1966, George Harrison married model Patti Boyd. They had met during the filming of The Beatles' film "A Hard Day's Night."
In 1982, bluesman B.B. King donated his entire record collection -- 7,000 records -- to the University of Mississippi. The collection included rare records he played as a DJ in the 1940s.
In 1984, singer Jackie Wilson died at the age of 49. He had been in a coma since his 1975 heart attack during a concert in New Jersey. His funeral was held in Detroit.
In 1990, the first MTV "Unplugged" special was aired, with Squeeze as the first performers.
In 1996, singer Francisco Garcia of Cannibal and the Headhunters died at 49, after a long illness. The group was best known for the song "Land of 1,000 Dances."
In 1997, Elvis' manager, Colonel Tom Parker, died of complications from a stroke in Las Vegas. He was 87.
In 1998, actor Jack Lord died of congestive heart failure at his home in Honolulu. He was 77. He's probably best known for starring on "Hawaii Five-O."
In 1999, actress Susan Strasberg died in New York at age 61.
Thought for Today: "Know yourself, and your neighbor will not mistake you." — Scottish proverb.
A UPI thought for the day: Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."
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